Part 47 (2/2)

Matthew's head was reeling as he and Monty and Joan pa.s.sed out of The Great World and into Kim Seng Road; for a moment he felt quite giddy and had to steady himself with a hand on the wall. Ehrendorf, shattered, had left half an hour earlier by himself; before leaving he had said to Joan: 'We must have a serious talk. I'll look in this evening if you're not back too late.' Joan had replied that he could do what he liked. She was accustomed to young men wanting to have serious talks with her. After a moment Matthew felt well enough to remove his hand from the wall and proceed: it was doubtless the effect of the unaccustomed heat and the crowds which had caused that moment of dizziness. Outside the gate there were fewer people to be seen; the stars shone brilliantly and the night seemed less oppressive.

They had only taken a few steps in the direction of River Valley Road when Joan said grimly: 'I'm going home. I've had enough for one evening.'

'But it's not even ten o'clock yet!' protested Monty indignantly. 'We can't turn in at this hour, particularly now we've got rid of Romeo. Besides, we're supposed to be showing Matthew the town.'

Matthew announced that he, too, felt he had seen enough for one evening. His spell of giddiness a few moments earlier had left him with a feeling that everything he had witnessed was utterly unreal. But Monty would not hear of another defection. He said to Joan: 'Why don't you take the Pontiac if you aren't going to come with us? We'll take a taxi.'

Presently, Matthew found himself in a taxi with Monty and heading, not for Raffles Hotel which Monty said would be full of stuffed s.h.i.+rts and only open till midnight anyway, but for some more interesting destination which Monty knew of. The taxi was a little yellow Ford 8 with springs that chimed and wheezed at every b.u.mp in the road. At the end of Grange Road they came into Orchard Road again, then into Bras Basah Road. Now they were drawing near the sea and a great white building loomed up on the left: Raffles Hotel, Monty said. As they pa.s.sed the brilliantly lit entrance on the landward side Matthew glimpsed an elderly couple leaving, the man in a black dinner-jacket, the woman in a long glittering evening-dress and stole. Monty chuckled at the crowd of natives who had gathered on Beach Road to watch the Europeans dining on the lawn beneath the tall pencil palms. 'That's the nightly show for the Asiatics. They think white women are wh.o.r.es the way they wear backless evening gowns. They come here every evening and lick their lips.'

At Monty's direction the taxi turned away from Raffles Hotel along the sea-front. On the right now was the starlit expanse of the padang padang and beyond it, just visible against the sky, the dignified silhouette of the former Grand Hotel de l'Europe, the benefits of whose dance-floor Matthew had longed in retrospect to transfer to Geneva. The driver evidently knew what was expected of him without having to be told, for their progress had slowed to a crawl and he had half turned in his seat awaiting further instructions. Monty was peering intently at the shadowy figures of women sitting in rickshaws or standing idly in groups of two or three beneath the trees which lined the road. 'Stop!' he said, and the taxi drew in to the kerb. and beyond it, just visible against the sky, the dignified silhouette of the former Grand Hotel de l'Europe, the benefits of whose dance-floor Matthew had longed in retrospect to transfer to Geneva. The driver evidently knew what was expected of him without having to be told, for their progress had slowed to a crawl and he had half turned in his seat awaiting further instructions. Monty was peering intently at the shadowy figures of women sitting in rickshaws or standing idly in groups of two or three beneath the trees which lined the road. 'Stop!' he said, and the taxi drew in to the kerb.

Hardly had they come to a halt when there was a great stirring in the darkness; from what had seemed to be empty rickshaws shadowy figures emerged. Further shapes could be seen s.h.i.+fting in the obscurity beneath the trees; beyond, anch.o.r.ed at sea in the inner roads, were a great number of s.h.i.+ps of which only the lights were visible. In a moment, to Matthew's surprise, the open windows of the taxi were entirely filled with women's faces, piled one on top of another like coconuts; shortly the windscreen, too, was blocked by the faces of yet more women leaning over the bonnet. A soft murmur filled the air from which an occasional word in English detached itself: 'OK John!' ... 'Nice!' ... 'Back all same flont!' 'Whisky soda!'

Meanwhile, the driver, an elderly Malay with a brown face and the white hair of a grandfather, had groped for an electric torch and shone its beam on one window after the other.

'Can these be real women?' wondered Matthew as the beam wandered unsteadily over the serried painted masks. Yet on many of these masks the wrinkles stood out despite the paint and powder; the angled light etched them all the more harshly, replacing sunken eyes with a blob of darkness. At the same time, here and there skeletal arms had stretched through the open windows to trail about in the interior of the cab, floating and flickering like sea-weed, plucking weakly at his s.h.i.+rt and trousers, palping his arm or thigh.

'Hags!' declared Monty. 'Drive on!'

The driver raced the engine and the windscreen cleared. One or two other faces showed themselves fleetingly in the places of those that had gone: younger, weaker, more innocent, but no less desperate, trawling unhopefully with this brief glimpse of their younger faces for the twin male l.u.s.ts which they knew were swimming back and forth like sharks somewhere in the depths of the cab. The hands groped more desperately, pleading, tugging, pinching. Then the taxi moved off in a hail of curses and vociferation. One or two of the women even tried to follow in rickshaws, hoping to catch up at the next traffic lights. But in no time they were left behind.

Monty explained, with the weary condescension of an expert, that certain of these women had their own permanent rickshaw coolies, usually ancient, hollowed-out skeletons of men, excavated by the pursuit of their shattering trade in the Singapore heat, who could no longer compete with younger rivals but might still, now and again, whip their broken limbs into a trot to reach some likely looking prospect with their fair cargoes of flesh ... by which he meant, he added with a chuckle, those leathery harridans whose services you could always purchase for a few cents. And they weren't all Chinese, Malay or Tamil either, by any manner of means. Sometimes you came across Europeans, yes, women who had 'gone wrong' in some Eastern city, who had found disgrace through opium or alcohol in Calcutta, Hong Kong or Shanghai ... He, Monty, as a student of human nature, took a pretty keen interest in the stories that some of these women could tell you ... there were even aristocratic women driven out of Russia in penury by the Revolution. And more recently, as a matter of fact, things had been getting better in Singapore as far as women went. Young Chinese girls had been arriving in droves, refugees from the Sino-j.a.p war escaping from Shanghai or Canton ...

'Not better better, Monty!' cried Matthew indignantly. 'How can you be so heartless!'

'Oh, I just meant younger, you know,' muttered Monty sullenly. 'No need to get worked up, old boy. After all, it's not my fault ...'

'But it's all our faults! It's disgraceful! This is supposed to be a prosperous country. We send huge profits back to our fat shareholders in England and yet we can't even provide for a few refugees without them having to go on the streets.'

'It's no good taking this high moral line out here in the East, you know. People don't go in for that sort of thing out here. It's not our cup of tea. You just have to accept things the way they are. In the Straits it's every man for himself, if you know what I mean, and it's as well not to over-do the pious remarks. Personally, and I think I can speak for a lot of chaps who have been out here a while, I don't care for moralizing, in fact it binds me rigid.' Monty sounded irritated. The evening's entertainment, which had started promisingly with the woman fired from the cannon, had proved the dampest of damp squibs. And now, would you believe it? he could hardly say a word without getting a sermon in return.

'I'm sorry, Monty. I don't mean to sound prudish. It's just that I think we have a rotten way of doing things when it comes to anything but making money,' replied Matthew absently for, of course, Monty could not be blamed for the plight of Chinese refugees on the sea-front in Singapore. But where then did the fault lie? While Matthew mused on this problem the little yellow taxi turned about and headed north again. It rather looked, said Monty gloomily, as if they would have to settle for a ma.s.sage somewhere.

25.

Among the painted masks which had peered in through the cab's open windows Matthew had noticed one or two younger faces: he remembered one in particular, of a Chinese girl aged perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen, rather ugly than pretty, but with a pleasant, homely, elfin ugliness like that of a bulldog, if you can imagine a delicately featured bulldog. Supposing that this girl, as seemed likely, was one of the new recruits that Monty had been talking about, he wondered at what precise moment during the past ten years it had become inevitable that she should be uprooted from her village somewhere in South China, or from a slum in Shanghai, and flung down on the streets of Singapore, obliged to sell herself if she could find a buyer? Surely, suggested Matthew to the pa.s.sive figure of Monty beside him, one must connect this child's desperate face with the long series of failures he himself had witnessed at the League of Nations in Geneva, with the ever-recurring inability of the Great Powers to commit themselves to a world organized on international lines, with the ever-present cynicism of the Foreign Office, and the Quai d'Orsay, and the Wilhelmstra.s.se where no opportunity was ever missed for showing the diplomats' professional distaste for open diplomacy or for sneering at the idea of a world parliament. What chilled the blood was the thought that this girl's plight and a million other tiny tragedies had been brought about by suave, neatly barbered, Savile Row-suited, genial, polite, cultured and probably even humane men in normal circ.u.mstances who would shrink with horror from themselves if they could be made to see their responsibility for what was happening!

Monty's only reply to this suggestion was a grunt or, possibly, a groan. What the point was, in this sort of speculation, he could not for the life of him see. He yawned and smacked his lips. What an evening! First one thing, then another. Well, the only consolation was that this business about which Matthew was getting so steamed up did sometimes produce mouth-watering opportunities. Perhaps he would manage to lay hands on some newly arrived little Chinese piece before the evening was out. It was sometimes on the cards these days, though one had to be lucky.

Encouraged by Monty's grunt of interest in what he had been saying, Matthew went on to explain that his own arrival in Geneva had coincided almost to the day with that fateful explosion beside the South Manchurian Railway in 1931. He had seen it all at first hand, from the first angry denunciations by China's representative, Dr Sze, of ma.s.sacres by j.a.panese troops and the reply of Yos.h.i.+zawa (the same chap who had just recently been in Java demanding oil and minerals from the Dutch) that the troops were merely defending j.a.pan's enormous interests ... to what had happened much later: to the devious, hypocritical, perfectly disgraceful support given to the untenable j.a.panese position by Sir John Simon and the Foreign Office, not to mention the British Press. Only the Manchester Guardian Manchester Guardian had condemned the j.a.panese and their British supporters. had condemned the j.a.panese and their British supporters.

Monty, peering out at the shadowy streets of Singapore as they fled by on either side of the cab, mumbled that he had been 'in the dark' about all that side of things. He belched dejectedly (perhaps he should not have bolted his fish and chips and beer so greedily at The Great World).

'You see, Monty, so much depended on how the League reacted. It was the first time the Council had had to deal with a quarrel involving a major power and it set the style for everything that has happened since ... for everything that will happen, even if one day they manage to revive the League, for years to come. for years to come. Because at that time people all over the world still believed in the League. When the Manchurian crisis broke out it was almost like some medieval tournament. People flocked to Geneva to see the respective delegates do battle. Each side spent vast sums of money, which their countries could ill afford, on propaganda and entertainment to try and win people over to their side. The Chinese took over a luxurious suite on the Quai Wilson, got hold of a French chef and some vintage wines and started giving magnificent dinner-parties. Because at that time people all over the world still believed in the League. When the Manchurian crisis broke out it was almost like some medieval tournament. People flocked to Geneva to see the respective delegates do battle. Each side spent vast sums of money, which their countries could ill afford, on propaganda and entertainment to try and win people over to their side. The Chinese took over a luxurious suite on the Quai Wilson, got hold of a French chef and some vintage wines and started giving magnificent dinner-parties.

'Meanwhile, as a sort of counter-attack the j.a.ps staged a colossal reception in the Kursaal at which tons of food and gallons of wine were funnelled into the open mouths of the plump burghers of Geneva as if into Strasbourg geese ... In return they made everyone watch a dreary propaganda film which they showed in the empty, echoing opera-house next door (both places had been shut down for the winter) all about the benefits of the South Manchuria Railway Company. Dismal isn't the word. It did no good, anyway, because of the Lytton Report. You know all about that, I expect?'

Hoping to forestall further revelations Monty murmured that, as a matter of fact, he was rather well-informed on that ... er ... particular subject ... er ... But Matthew willingly set to work to refresh his memory, just in case. 'This fellow is a serious menace,' thought Monty, glancing at the stout, bespectacled figure of his companion.

What had happened was that the League, this was actually a temporizing device, sent a commission of enquiry composed of a German doctor, a French general, an Italian count and an American Major-General under the chairmans.h.i.+p of Lord Lytton to Manchuria to establish the disputed facts of the matter. It had taken them a year but when they finally published their report, they made no bones about it: j.a.pan was roundly condemned ... no doubt to the horror of Sir John Simon and his ilk. They concluded that Manchuria was an integral part of China, that the j.a.panese action could not be justified as self-defence, that j.a.p troops should be withdrawn and a genuinely Chinese regime restored. 'That really set the cat among the pigeons, as you can imagine!'

Whether Monty could imagine or not, all he said was: 'This place is usually full of troops at this time of night. It's funny, there must have been a police raid or something.'

The taxi had come to a halt in a sleazy rubbish-strewn street lined with the usual two-storey shophouses but wider than the streets they had come through. Matthew, still in Geneva, stared out in a daze. Was.h.i.+ng, hanging over the street from a forest of poles, tossed and billowed in the light breeze like the banners of an army on the march. Here and there dim electric lights glimmered, emphasizing the darkness rather than shedding light. Monty was speaking.

'Sorry, what's that?'

'I said I thought we might have a beer before going home.'

One moment the street was deserted except for a few shadowy figures playing mah-jong under a street-lamp, the next it suddenly began to fill up; men were scurrying out of doorways, pedalling up on bicycles, galloping towards them in the shafts of rickshaws, even slithering down drainpipes. Nearby a manhole cover where the pavement spanned the storm-drain popped up and men began to pour out of that, too. All these men were converging on one place, the taxi in which Matthew sat in a trance with his thoughts struggling back like refugees from Geneva. He roused himself at last. 'What's all this?'

'They're just looking for customers for their girls,' said Monty who had been paying the taxi-driver. 'Come on, and hold on to your wallet.'

Before they could set foot on the pavement they were surrounded by dim, jostling figures. Words were whispered confidentially into Matthew's ear as he waded after Monty ... 'Nice girl' ... 'Guarantee virgin' ... 'You wantchee try Singapore Glip? More better allsame Shanghai Glip!' ('Do I want to try what what?' wondered Matthew unable to make head nor tail of this rigmarole.) ... 'Oil ma.s.sage number one!' ... Hands flourished grubby visiting-cards. 'You want very nice pleasure!' bayed a giant, bearded Sikh, placing himself menacingly in their path. 'You coming please this way.' But Monty brushed him aside and dived into a lighted doorway beneath a sign reading: 'Dorchester Bed and Breakfast. Very select. All welcome. Servicemen welcome.' Matthew, one hand anxiously gripping his wallet, plunged after Monty. His head was reeling again. 'I must be ill,' he thought giddily as he clambered up a smelly flight of stairs. 'What am I doing here? I should be at home in bed.'

At the top of the stairs an Indian with oiled black hair and a dark, pock-marked face was waiting to greet them. His smile revealed very white teeth among which nestled here and there a glittering gold one; the glitter of his teeth was echoed by the glitter of a row of gold-topped fountain pens and propelling pencils in the breast pocket of his s.h.i.+rt, by the fat gold rings on his fingers, and by the steel watch on his wrist: all this combined to give him a disagreeably metallic appearance. Around his waist he had wound what at first appeared to be a white sarong sarong; on closer inspection it proved to be merely a bath towel with the words Hotel Adelphi Singapore Hotel Adelphi Singapore in blue. Was this his normal attire or had they just surprised him in his bath? For a moment it was hard to be sure. in blue. Was this his normal attire or had they just surprised him in his bath? For a moment it was hard to be sure.

'Very kind lovely gentlemen,' he said, putting his palms and long, delicate, glittering fingers of both hands together in graceful gesture, 'please coming this way please.'

They were shown into a small, dimly lit room. An elderly and very fat Indian lady, who had evidently been asleep there on the floor, was making a hasty exit and dragging her bedding with her. Monty ordered beers and they sat down, Monty on a bamboo chair, Matthew on a broken-backed couch. The Indian had disappeared down a pa.s.sage. Matthew stared round the room uneasily. What strange places Monty frequented!

On the wall there were two calendars: one, for 1940, advertised the Nippon Kisen Kaisha Nippon Kisen Kaisha and showed an enormous ocean liner with Mount Fuji rising improbably out of the mists behind it; the other was for 1939, advertizing Fraser and Neave's soda water: a healthy-looking European girl, whose rather blank, flawless face bore an odd resemblance to Joan's, was holding a tennis racket in one hand and a gla.s.s in the other: two men in tennis flannels in the background, very much diminished by perspective, whispered together beneath her outstretched arm and eyed her with interest. Nearby was another picture, this time a photograph torn from a magazine and framed. Matthew gave an exclamation of surprise when he saw who it was: for how often had he not seen that familiar face coming or going in the lobby at the Hotel Beau Rivage in Geneva! For what hopes and, ultimately, for what despair had its owner not been responsible when he had faced Mussolini over the Abyssinian crisis! With excitement he summoned Monty to join him in gazing at the foxy, handsome features of Anthony Eden. and showed an enormous ocean liner with Mount Fuji rising improbably out of the mists behind it; the other was for 1939, advertizing Fraser and Neave's soda water: a healthy-looking European girl, whose rather blank, flawless face bore an odd resemblance to Joan's, was holding a tennis racket in one hand and a gla.s.s in the other: two men in tennis flannels in the background, very much diminished by perspective, whispered together beneath her outstretched arm and eyed her with interest. Nearby was another picture, this time a photograph torn from a magazine and framed. Matthew gave an exclamation of surprise when he saw who it was: for how often had he not seen that familiar face coming or going in the lobby at the Hotel Beau Rivage in Geneva! For what hopes and, ultimately, for what despair had its owner not been responsible when he had faced Mussolini over the Abyssinian crisis! With excitement he summoned Monty to join him in gazing at the foxy, handsome features of Anthony Eden.

Monty, however, declined to move. Either he was an habitue habitue of the establishment and had already seen the picture, or else he had no particular interest in Anthony Eden; it might be, too, that he feared another discourse on world affairs for he winced visibly as Matthew, reminded of Geneva by the picture of Anthony Eden, suddenly resumed his harangue on the Lytton Report. of the establishment and had already seen the picture, or else he had no particular interest in Anthony Eden; it might be, too, that he feared another discourse on world affairs for he winced visibly as Matthew, reminded of Geneva by the picture of Anthony Eden, suddenly resumed his harangue on the Lytton Report.

'As I was saying, it set the cat among the pigeons, of course it did! The Lytton Report condemned j.a.pan. Result? China could now demand action under Article 16 according to which the other members of the League could be asked to sever trade and financial relations with j.a.pan. This was something that the Big Powers did not want to do: both Von Neurath, for Germany, and the bald baron, whatever his name was, for Italy, made it quite plain in the a.s.sembly debate on the Lytton Report that they wouldn't put up with any positive action. For three days the matter was thrashed out by the whole a.s.sembly in one of the larger rooms of the Disarmament Conference Building, where, as I expect you know, another long-running tragedy was playing at the same time, but among the Big Powers it was our man, I'm afraid, Sir John Simon, who really took the biscuit ...'

While Matthew, who had sprung up from the couch again and was striding up and down the room making the floorboards creak, had been discoursing the Indian had reappeared with two bottles of beer with straws in them. He looked unsurprised to find one of his customers striding up and down shouting; odd behaviour was by no means unusual under his roof, but he was inclined to take it philosophically, reflecting that every profession must have its disadvantages. He handed one bottle to Monty and the other to Matthew who took it without noticing.

'Simon, believe it or not, managed to give such a selective interpretation of the Lytton Report that anyone who hadn't read it might have wondered whether it wasn't the Chinese who had invaded j.a.pan instead of vice versa. Not surprisingly, the smaller nations were indignant. Before their very eyes all the fine words and n.o.ble undertakings were proving to be gross hypocrisy. ”If the League does not succeed in securing peace and justice,” the Norwegian delegate declared angrily, ”then the whole system by which right was meant to replace might will collapse.” And he knew what he was talking about, as it has turned out. One of the Finns then wanted to know if the League was merely a debating club. I don't know if you can imagine, Monty, the shock and anger and disappointment we all felt at the way Simon and our Foreign Office destroyed, with the help of their cronies, what was without doubt the best chance the world had ever had to inst.i.tute a system of international justice!' Matthew, making a violent gesture with his beer bottle, had caused the liquid inside it to foam out of the neck and spill over his hand. He paused for a moment to brood and lick his knuckles.

In the meantime the door had opened and half a dozen women had been shown in; they went to sit in a glum row on a bench against the wall.

'You picking please woman at your disposition,' said the Indian politely.

Four of the newcomers were middle-aged Chinese women with scarlet cheekbones; two of them started a whispered conversation in Cantonese, a third puffed smoke-rings from green lips, a fourth took out her knitting. The other two women were much younger, mere girls; one was a flat-nosed, round-faced Malay, the other a plain, pallid Chinese with neat pigtails; this latter girl took out a school exercise book and a text book and began to do her Latin homework. Monty looked them over without excitement and belched: the beer seemed unusually gaseous this evening. He was uncomfortable and out of sorts, no doubt about it. He felt, in particular, that there was still another bubble of air lodged distressingly inside him. Would it soon rise to the surface? He waited, surveying himself internally and thinking what a wretched evening he was having.

Suddenly, from some other part of the building through the thin walls there came a drunken Scandinavian voice. 'You say you are a wirgin. I say you are not not a wirgin!' This was followed by an alarming crash. a wirgin!' This was followed by an alarming crash.

'But,' said Matthew, who had taken a gulp of beer and was striding up and down once more (he was sweating copiously and felt by no means sober though he had had little to drink all evening), 'the Report was there and there was nothing they could do about it. That Report had stuck in the gullets of the Great Powers. They could neither swallow it nor spit it out. In fact, the only thing they could think of to do was, of course, what they always did in Geneva when they found themselves at a loss: they formed a committee ... this one was to report on the Report report on the Report! Ludicrous! It was called the Committee of Nineteen. It wasted no time in settling down to the stern task of fostering sub-committees of its own in the best Geneva tradition, in particular a sub-committee for conciliation. What a farce! At one time the cynics were saying that they would soon have to have a report on the report on the Report. And yet the Report itself was plain enough. In due course the Committee of Nineteen produced its report on the Report, however. They even went so far as to broadcast it from the League's new wireless station in Geneva. And yet again the Big Powers found themselves with egg on their faces! j.a.pan was plainly condemned. Chinese sovereignty should be restored. Members of the League should not recognize Manchukuo. But ironically enough, at the very moment that j.a.pan was being condemned at Geneva she was preparing to invade Eastern Inner Mongolia as well.'

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